FLASH! Lani Pallister Clobbers Katie Ledecky’s World Record in 800 Freestyle (SCM)
Three months earlier Lani Pallister swam the meet of her life at the World Championships and nearly knocked off the great Katie Ledecky in the 800 freestyle. Now, Pallister has broken the first world record of her career in the short course 800 free on the final night of the World Cup circuit in Toronto.
Pallister has dominated the freestyle races 400 meters and longer throughout the World Cup circuit, and she saved the best for last. Pallister quickly jumped on the pace against the top 800-meter heat in Toronto, leading eventual runnerup Erika Fairweather of New Zealand by a full second by 125 meters. From the start, Pallister swam ahead of the superimposed world-record line, with the only question being whether she could maintain her early speed.
After all, this was a Ledecky record, the time of 7:57.42 established at a World Cup meet in Indianapolis three years ago. Ledecky has set 17 world records during her career, and entering Saturday, only once had another swimmer knocked off one of the distance great’s standards (Ariarne Titmus in the long course 400 free in 2022).
By the halfway point, Pallister had opened up an advantage of more than two seconds on Ledecky’s world-record pace. Pallister had been under record pace two weeks earlier at the Carmel stop, where she swam a time of 8:02.02 to just miss her own Australian record, but never by such a massive margin. Even Ledecky’s sizzling pace could not catch up to the Australian in the closing stages of the race as she ended up obliterating the world record by almost three-and-a-half seconds.
Pallister’s final time was 7:54.00, her best time by almost eight seconds ahead of the 8:01.95 she swam to win the event at the Short Course World Championships last December. Pallister had never before come within a second of a world record, although her efforts in the 400 free during this World Cup circuit did make her the No. 3 performer ever in the 400 free.
Pallister won the event by more than 15 seconds over another pair of swimmers from Oceania. Fairweather came in at 8:09.69 for second place while fellow Kiwi Caitlin Deans took third in 8:11.76.
